Audio processing modules are typically implemented as parts of a sound card device driver in a computing device. For example, in some operating systems such as the Windows Operating System from Microsoft Corp., in Seattle, Wash., these processing modules may be implemented as audio processing objects (APOs).
After audio streams have been decoded, metadata obtained by a decoder could be used to enhance the playback experience of the audio streams. Unfortunately, the standard sound APIs in many operating systems typically support only the passing of audio samples to audio processing modules. Thus, the audio processing modules would not have the metadata associated with the audio samples to enhance media experience when only the audio samples are received from a decoder, but rather would have to recompute and regenerate a limited amount of the metadata from the received audio samples at a great cost of CPU complexity and/or delay.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section. Similarly, issues identified with respect to one or more approaches should not assume to have been recognized in any prior art on the basis of this section, unless otherwise indicated.